Neal and Cynthia Hochman Receive WHBPAC Visionary Award

Preceding the sold out Liza Minnelli performance at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Saturday, July 6, Neal and Cynthia Hochman were presented with the Center’s 2013 Visionary Award.

WHBPAC explains that its Visionary Award is presented to “outstanding individuals whose passion, commitment, leadership and wisdom have made a significant impact on the Center” and, as longtime supporters, the Hochmans fit that criteria.

Carol Hochman has been an active board member of WHBPAC since it opened, and Neal retired as chairman and CEO of Carole Hochman Design Group, which is a leader in the women’s sleepwear and intimate apparel industry. The couple has remained active with WHBPAC since its inception and have worked hard to transform the theater into a multipurpose arts center. Neal’s family foundation—the Mollie Parnis Livingston Foundation—also donated the significant lead gift toward the theater’s restoration, so it was only fitting that the auditorium be named after his famous fashionista aunt, Mollie Parnis, a woman for whom artistic expression was an unadulterated passion.

Chairman of the Board Thomas B. Poole presented the award—a custom engraved Tiffany & Co. Sterling Silver Elsa Peretti Star Dish—to the couple, who continue to be an integral part of the WHBPAC family, inspiring a new generation of young philanthropists.